


There's An Old Earth Saying...

by raja815



Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Childhood Memories, Family backstory, M/M, Pre-Slash, outsider perspective on a relationship, proverb
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-19
Updated: 2014-01-19
Packaged: 2018-01-09 06:37:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1142693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raja815/pseuds/raja815
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's an old Earth saying, that falling in love is hard on the knees.  Kirk's heard it a few times in his life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	There's An Old Earth Saying...

**Author's Note:**

> For a challenge with [colonel_bastard](http://archiveofourown.org/users/colonel_bastard): "there's an old {planet/country/people/etc} saying..." with a 500-word limit. Her fic, "It's Just the Nearness of You," is wonderful and precious and you can read it [here!](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1152626)
> 
> Set in the first year of the five year mission.

There's an old Earth saying, that falling in love is hard on the knees.

The proverb has its roots in pre-Eugenics American English, from a work of classical music in a style once colloquially known as 'rock n' roll'. Jim's mother used to say it, back when he was a shy kid who used to come home despondent because Catie Faliva wouldn't sit beside him on the ride to school. 

"Falling in love's hard on the knees, James," she'd say, ruffling his hair, and pour him a consolatory glass of juice before heading back into her office to answer a few more messages before dinner. 

More often, though, he heard it from his brother. Sam had considered himself the family expert on romance ever since he'd grown his first scanty mustache at age fifteen. 

"That's falling in love, Jimmy," he'd said, the day Lexi Bertram had rebuffed Jim's advances at a post football game party, "hard on the knees."

Kirk didn't hear much once he left Iowa, partly because Starfleet Academy had its own favored proverbs, partly because he finally started to figure things out, romance-wise (Sam wrote that he was proud). In fact, he hadn't heard anyone say it in over ten years, until the day he and Spock stumbled into sickbay in a bloody tangle after the rockslide on Delta Epsilon IV.

Spock had the worst of it—a craggy chunk of pegmatite had dealt him a sliding blow at the temple, leaving him with a jagged cut across his forehead and a mild concussion—but Kirk had come out spattered with hundreds of cuts and bruises, for once he'd seen Spock collapse, he'd dived into the thick of the falling rocks and shielded his first officer with his own body.

"Lying down in the middle of a goddamn rockslide," Dr. McCoy groused, once he'd gotten Spock stable and had settled into tending Kirk's many abrasions. "Do you like making work for me?"

"I covered my head," Kirk said. "And what would you have had me do? Let Spock get buried? Look at that mess on his forehead, I couldn't leave him alone."

"Course you couldn't." McCoy rolled his eyes and stood. "I'm going for more bandages. When I get back maybe I'll check out those knees of yours, Jim. All this must be hard as hell on 'em."

The doctor glanced toward Spock's bed in a meaningful way as he departed.

The realization hit Kirk like a wave— confusion, disbelief, recognition, abject panic—and left him blinking into the examination table with the incredible force of it. 

"Were your knees also damaged, Captain?" Came Spock's voice, groggy and strained. 

Kirk was badly startled; he hadn't even known Spock was awake.

"They're fine, Spock, don't worry,” Kirk assured, feeling blindsided. "Bones is just... making a little joke."

He heard McCoy's sarcastic snort all the way from the storeroom, and could almost swear he heard Sam's voice, too: _that's falling in love, Jimmy. Hard on the knees._

**Author's Note:**

> The song mentioned at the beginning is, of course, "Falling In Love (Is Hard on the Knees)" by Aerosmith.


End file.
